4th December, 2013

"The first aspect," Virat declared as they were planning inside the flight, "is that we are not going to do anything at midnight."

"Okay..." said Jinks.

"We'll do it at three. Three."

"Er..."

"Why three?" asked Rohit.

"Because--" improvised Virat. "Three hours after midnight, he'd have lost all hopes and expectations of a midnight celebration altogether!"

Rohit and Jinks exchanged a look.

"All right," said Jinks. "We'll have to wake up Shikhar and the rest of the team at three in the night then. Quite enticing, I must say."

Rohit gave a bland smile.

"You have to stay awake, Rohit!" snarled Virat. "We are not going to waste time waking you up, you lazy ass!"

"Jinks, he's abusing me," said Rohit.

"Oh, really? You want abuses?--"

Jinks interrupted hastily, a newly formed habit that was to stay with him for the rest of his life. "We'll have to get the cake before midnight, anyway. Where'll we cut it? The team room?"

"The team room?" Virat wrinkled his nose his disgust. "Who does such boring, obvious things? The team room?"

 "I don't like it either," agreed Rohit. "Where do you think we can, then?"

"Somewhere completely different," Virat said, thinking hard. "Somewhere no one will ever expect--"

"Like outerspace," suggested Rohit.

"You have to be realistic," chided Virat.

Jinks coughed.

"Shikhar is a grounded guy," mused Virat. "It has to be on the ground."

"What do you mean by the ground?" asked Jinks.

"The ground. Any grounds. A stadium!"

Jinks tried to put forth his (not at all positive) opinion, but Rohit said, "Awesome! How will we enter a stadium at three at night, though?"

"I'm sure we'll find a way," said Virat.

Jinks wished he had the window seat so he could turn his back on Rohit and Virat and stare out of the window as they went about their ridiculous plan.

***

Across the aisle, unknown to them, another trio was planning for the same occasion, and their discussion was also proceeding along similar lines.

"Midnight is out of the question," said Jaddu. "I say we celebrate at three. It's said to the spookiest hour, when all the ghosts of the past come alive."

"Stop it with the ghost stories, Jad," said Ash in a bored voice. "We've had enough for a day."

Jaddu gave Bhuvi a conspiratorial wink, which Bhuvi felt obliged to return.

"You mean we should barge into his room with a cake at three?" asked Bhuvi.

"Room?" Jaddu sounded scandalized. "What do you mean, his room? Shikhar is a guy with a heart of gold, so he should be soaring in the air."

"You mean that figuratively, I hope," said Ash, cautiously.

"I do not," said Jaddu. "It has to be somewhere in the air. How do we get Shikhar into the air?"

"By killing him and converting him into a ghost possibly?" said Ash severely.

"No, that would kill the spirit of the birthday. We're not celebrating a deathday, Ashley."

"I had no idea."

"Bhuvi, d'you have any idea?" asked Jaddu.

Bhuvi looked alarmed to be asked. "N-no."

"And neither do I," said Ash firmly, "so--"

"Let's feed him a hundred cans of Red Bull!" said Jaddu brightly. "Red Bull shall give him wings."

"Drinking a hundred cans of Red Bull will make him spend the whole day in the washroom," said Ash. "But it will not make him fly."

"But--"

"He's right, you know," said Bhuvi.

"All right!" said Jaddu. "But we have to arrange something! And surely we can, too--a jet or something!"

"We will land past nine in the evening, Jaddu," said Bhuvi, so exasperated that he forgot to be timid. "From where can we possibly arrange a jet?"

"I won't celebrate Shikhar's birthday on land," declared Jaddu. "Shikhar never celebrates his birthday on the ground. He floats."

"He floats," repeated Ash.

"Exactly," said Jaddu.

Ash and Bhuvi shook their heads at each other.

"A jet might be impossible to arrange," mused Jaddu. "What about a hot-air balloon?"

***

The flight landed in Johannesburg half an hour late, with the result that they reached their hotel past ten at night, and ate a hasty dinner before they were shown into their respective rooms. Bhuvi, who had been assigned Shikhar's roommate, dared not go up to the room at all, instead choosing to disappear after dinner. He was no good at lying and making up excuses, which he would certainly have had to do if he'd had to leave the room under Shikhar's nose.

Jaddu and Ash met him in the lawns not long after.

"We can get the hot-air balloon from any of these three places." Jaddu showed them three shady sites on his phone. "We have to leave right away if we're to reach them, though--"

There was a rustling of footsteps on grass around the clump of trees.

"Who's there?" asked a frightened Bhuvi, who still hadn't fully recovered from Jaddu's story.

Three coated and mufflered shapes emerged--who turned out to be Virat, Jinks and Rohit.

"It's just you guys," Ash said, a bit relieved himself.

"What are you doing?" Virat asked them suspiciously.

"Making preparations for Shikki's birthday," said Jaddu breezily.

"Oh, really? So are we!" said Rohit.

"Something related to midnight birthday cakes, is it?" asked Ash with a sinister smile. "Wait till you hear our plan."

"Not at all," said Jinks in a dignified tone. "Our plan's not as boring as midnight birthday cakeS."

"We'll break into the stadium and light fire-torches in the stadium!" said Virat.

"We're sending Shikhar up on a hot-air balloon!" Jaddu said at the exact same time.

"What?" demanded everyone.

"A hot-air balloon, did you say?" Virat asked, pretending to himself he didn't wish he had come up with that plan. "You can't do that! Shikhar is a grounded guy, he has to be on the ground."

"He has a heart of gold," countered Jaddu promptly. "He must soar in the air."

"That's impossible anyway," said Jinks, in a logical sort of voice. "Where will you get a hot-air balloon from at eleven at night?"

"What if I do?" asked Jaddu. "Shikhar can get into it if I get it, right?"

"Yeah, if you--" began Jinks.

"Don't bet against Jaddu, Jinks!" cried Virat. "If he says he'll get it, he will, so we can't allow him to go at all."

Jaddu sprinted. "Stop me if you can!"

Virat and Rohit shrieked and sprinted after him. Jaddu was by far the fastest runner amongst the three, however, so he'd nearly reached the gates when a thin form went flying past Rohit and Virat and tackled him to the ground.

"No, you don't," Jinks said, gasping for breath.

"Jinks!"

Rohit and Virat were lost in admiration as they approached their teammate pinning down their enemy leader. Ash and Bhuvi were pretty admiring, too, with the result that Jaddu found himself fast falling out of favour.

"The hot-air balloon is such a different idea," he groaned, as he and Jinks were hauled up by the other four. "If you want to break into a stadium, Virat--which by the way I'm in full support of--the hot-air balloon would need a large clear space, anyway, so we could fix the ropes on the grounds."

Virat and Rohit couldn't help acknowledging the charm of the innovative idea.

"All right, how about this?" Rohit said, excited. "We send Shikhar into the air, and we fix fire-torches on the grass saying 'Happy birthday'.

"How many torches do you think that'll need?" Virat shoved him.

"Go with HBD," said Ash quickly. "That should be enough."

"And the time!" Virat shouted.

"Shh!" Jinks said. "Do you want Shikhar or Mahi bhai to find us?"

Virat covered his mouth in horror, and when he spoke, did so in a much softer whisper.

"Shikhar himself will be in air, so you decided that part of the plan. Hence, we'll decide the time."

"Absolutely n--"

Ash overrode Jaddu. "All right. When?"

"Three," said Virat.

Jaddu cackled at the top of his voice. "We decided three too!"

Virat scowled. Bhuvi clamped a hand over Jaddu's mouth to muffle his cackling that still hadn't stopped.

"I agree it has to be after midnight," said Rohit meekly. "But why three? Why not six? That way all of Shikhar's hopes will die for this year and next year."

"Don't think we don't know the real reason behind this, Ro." Virat looked at him menacingly. "Don't you dare bring your sleep in between our patriotic planning."

"Patriotic?" asked Jinks.

"Patriotic?" asked Ash.

"Aren't we ready to even die for our homeland, for our friend? Aren't we?" When nobody said anything, Virat added, "AREN'T WE, JADDU?"

"Yes," said Jaddu smoothly. "And when we die, we'll become even better friends with Phenol."

"Who's Phenol?" asked Bhuvi.

"My pet ghost," said Jaddu.

Bhuvi took a step back. "You're joking again, aren't you?" he asked with a hint of apprehension.

"Nope," said Jaddu casually. "Come with me to Jamnagar next time, I'll introduce you to him."

"Don't try to scare Bhuvi with your nonsense, Jaddu," said Virat fiercely. "It's nearly midnight, and we still haven't arranged anything!"

"We have arranged the plan," Ash pointed out.

"Which is no ordinary plan, either," said Jaddu solemnly.

"Whatever," said Virat. "Everyone--go get their list of things!"

As they dispersed, he whispered to Rohit, "How do you think Jaddu's plan was so similar to mine, Ro?"

Rohit, who could see his night's sleep slipping out of his grasp and felt very helpless about it, gave another bland smile. "You two are the same person in terms of sanity, Virat, just in different bodies."

"You can't say that!" hissed Virat indignantly. "I always have better plans than him...always--don't I?"

"Certainly, my bad," said Rohit sympathetically. "You two are as different as the sky and the ground."

Virat thought for a while and then patted Rohit on the shoulder grinned, satisfied, and they went on their way to procure fire-torches and bribe guards of the nearest local stadium.